Chatham County, North Carolina is a lovely rural environment, just perfect for artists to create and show their work. Chatham's visual and performing artists offer unique authentic creations, just minutes from the Triangle, Triad and Southern Pines communities.
Come experience our creativity!
*Copyright of Forrest C. Greenslade, PhD

Thursday, June 30, 2016

CHAPEL HILL —
Fourth-grade students at Scroggs Elementary are studying North Carolina
artists.

Sarah Cornette, the school’s art teacher, asked guest artists to
come speak with the fourth-graders. The guest artists included Sam Ezell, folk
artist and painter from Hillsborough; Barbara Tyroler, a photographer from
Chapel Hill who has worked extensively creating portraits of children; Forrest
Greenslade, a retired biologist who now creates sculptures and paintings for
the Botanical Gardens; and Michel Brown, Chapel Hill muralist.

Fourth-graders at
Scroggs Elementary School recently got a chance to meet and work with local
artists

.Sarah Cornette, art teacher at Scroggs Elementary, invited the artists as part
of the fourth-graders’ North Carolina Artists unit.Cornette shared the artists’ work with her students before they visited, and
they prepared questions to ask the artists.later in life.Forrest Greenslade, a retired molecular biologist who lives in Fearrington Village, now paints, sculpts and writes. He brought his personal favorite painting to share with the class Tuesday afternoon.“The reason this is my favorite painting is because the idea for it started when I was exactly your age,” he told the class as he displayed his painting of an ivory-billed woodpecker. “This painting really represents my entire life.”He told of being inspired by paintings of birds as a young member of Junior Audubon Club. These images inspired him both to study science and become a biologist and to paint animals But the students didn’t only learn about Greenslade’s work — they also rolled
up their sleeves and created something of their own.Greenslade taught the students how to collaborate with each other to create
small clay slabs that would eventually fit together to form a giant frog,
Scroggs’ mascot.“Find places and just poke it in right there,” Greenslade coached as the
students lined up with slabs of clay

flattened with their hands and rolling
pins.The project was also a larger collaboration between two classes. Monday’s class
formed the bottom of the frog, and Tuesday’s class formed the top.Students patted down clay around a center of cellulose beads, or packing
peanuts. Greenslade said he hoped the beads would burn up when the frog was
fired in the kiln, leaving a hollow frog.However, there was also the possibility that the frog could burn up in the
kiln.“We’re going to take a risk and try something new together,” Greenslade told
the class.

Student Sonia Levin-Metcalfe said she liked studying and meeting local artists
because “we get to learn different kinds of art and different types of it.”She also said she liked the frog project because “it’s a lot of teamwork and
it’s a big experiment. So you don’t know if it’s going to make it through the
kiln and actually become a piece of art. But it’s fun to try.”As the students patted down their clay, the frog began to take shape. Then it
was time for smaller embellishments, and students set to work making frog toes
and eyes.“I like how it all comes together,” said student Griffin Nargi. “The art of it
is just to put in the perfect details.”

Wednesday, June 29, 2016

University of North Carolina
advertising major, Emily Overcarsh approached me for a series of interviews for
an honors course she was taking on the role of the artist and artisan in modern
culture

. I agreed, and we began meeting and talking. She observed me working in
my studio, and noted that she had never actually made anything with her own
hands, and was not familiar with using tools. She commented that her father had
a shop, but she had never worked in it.

Emily
expressed a desire to try her hand at making a sculptural piece. I was
designing a series of humorous floral sculptures for the Sculpture in the Garden show at the North Carolina Botanical
Garden, so we decided that Emily would attempt to make a similar piece. Here is
Emily with my prototype design. Over the next few weeks, Emily came to my
studio and worked under my watchful eye to ensure that she used tools and
materials safely.

Her first
task was to envision her piece, and start on an armature, the skeleton of the
sculpture. She cut petals from 100 year old tin roof shingles that I had in the
shop. She then hammered them into shape She
assembled the petals into the flower’s face by wiring them on a hardware cloth
circle. She added chicken wire to complete the armature.

Emily then
mixed a concrete composite of Portland cement, screened peat moss, an acrylic
fortifier and water, wearing a mask to keep dangerous dust from her lungs. She
sculpted it onto her armature, being careful to protect her hands using
surgical gloves. She made glass eyes by painting the backs of half-marbles.

After
the concrete cured for a few days, Emily coated her flower with a bronze
acrylic, and tarnished the metal surface with an acid stain. She allowed the
tarnish to act for a few days, and then applied a wax to burnish the surface
into a lustrous glow

Here is
Emily and her flower in my garden in Fearrington Village. She has now graduated
from UNC, and lives in the Atlanta area. Her flower adorns her family’s garden.

Emily says
that making a piece of art with her own hands opened her mind to new ways of
thinking and creating. She says that she plans to always find ways to do things
with both her mind and hands.

Saturday, June 4, 2016

Cool off the long hot Summer with a cold beer and cool art.
Chatham Artists Guild painter and sculptor Forrest C . Greenslade is the
featured artist for June and July at the Carolina Brewery in"I
was that kid you could always find turning over rocks in streams and looking
for what wonders nature would disclose to me," says Greenslade. His
curiosity about the natural world, led him to a life as scientist and
organizational executive. Now in retirement, Dr. Greenslade is again doing what
he did when he was ten years old -- turning over rocks and sculpting and
painting the wonders that nature discloses. "I lived a serious life, but
now in my dotage, I am just letting the kid out again," Greenslade smiles
."It's more fun than an old guy deserves."

Pittsboro, NC. His
“Organic Forrestry” mixed media works are inspired by his life-long love of
nature.

Meet Forrest and other Chatham Guild artists at a reception
on July 3rd from 3 to 5 at the Brewery.

About Forrest

"I was that kid you could always find turning over rocks in streams, looking for what wonders nature would disclose to me," says Greenslade. His curiosity about the natural world led him to a life as scientist and organizational executive. Now in retirement, Dr. Greenslade is again doing what he did when he was ten years old -- turning over rocks and sculpting and painting the wonders that nature discloses.
"I lived a serious life, but now in my dotage, I am just letting the kid out again," Greenslade smiles.
"It's more fun than an old guy deserves."
My wife Carol-Ann and I live in Fearrington Village, where we host The Artist's Garret AirBNB over my Organic Forrestry Studio.